Witch Hunt

Chapter Forty-One




I desperately wanted to phone Maggie, but I had no signal out here and my battery was low. I’d do it when I got back to the pub. I knew she’d be electrified by what I had to say.

I gathered up my stuff and went downstairs. It was gone nine. Anne and Harry were seated in the snug, the dogs at their feet stretched out in front of a hearty fire. The whole place smelled of weed.

Harry was staring glumly into the fire, a glass of wine in his hand.

They looked up as I marched in and threw myself into the armchair. Anne asked me if I was all right.

I nodded, though I was buzzing. ‘Have you read those journals?’ I asked them breathily. I hoped they had. I wanted to talk about it, to share it.

Harry shook his head. ‘Some of them. Bit dry for me.’

I felt like I was stoned. My thoughts were leaping around, following each other quickly but illogically. ‘I know they’re not the real thing but they are still very important, in my view. Especially when they can be supported by this. It’s going to be of major significance to my writing.’

I stretched forwards and put the frame in Harry’s hands. He rubbed away some of the dust and held it out to read.

Anne leant forwards to see and put her glasses on. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

I blew out my cheeks. ‘I think it’s a page from a ship’s ledger. Can you see the date?’

Anne read it. ‘August 1647.’

It was definitely enough time for Hopkins to get over to New England, settle himself down and then start on Margaret Jones in Boston. Evidence against her was presented in spring and she was watched in May.

‘Look at the name.’ Both sets of eyes obeyed me. ‘Jediah Curwen-Dunmow. See the initials next to it. I think they relate to Matthew Hopkins. It’s borne out by the Braybrook diaries.’

Harry shrugged. ‘The Witchfinder General. Nasty chap.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But this makes it look like he went abroad, to New England. It’s possible it was he who started the witch hunts over there. This is an important document. You must take it to the university with the journals. I think they’d be able to authenticate it.’

‘Fascinating,’ Harry said. He seemed genuinely delighted to have facilitated the discovery.

I would have thanked them but my mind was on other things: where had I seen that name? Why would I have seen it before?

I fed it into my mental filing system. When had I come across it?

Recently, I felt sure.

In my research?

Had I covered it in a story?

I jerked my head up at Harry. He was saying something about his Uncle Alexander and how proud the family would be but I interrupted. I was over-animated now. ‘Do you have the internet here?’

‘The computer is in the study but the connection out here is very slow.’ Anne was apologetic. ‘We don’t use it often. A round robin at Christmas, that sort of thing. We’ll use it more often when they upgrade the area …’

‘But you have got a connection here?’

She nodded.

‘I know the name – Curwen. I’ve seen it somewhere before. Does it sound familiar to you? No. Okay well, I’ll log on with my laptop. Do you mind?’

They didn’t.

I ran through the hallway and outside. In the front garden the air had grown stiffer, the rain harder. The moon had dropped out of the billowing clouds, replaced by a flowing seascape of turbulent streams and speeding, spreading dark masses.

I retrieved my laptop from the boot and turned around quickly, catching for a second a movement behind the top window. I stopped and looked again. Nothing there. It was dark inside the house. Perhaps it had been the shadow of the trees in the wind.

My heels crunched over the gravel of the drive. I shut the thick wooden door on the squall outside, feeling the resistance of the streaming air trying with all its might to get in. The house was as solid as a mountain, built to withstand the elements, though there were obviously cracks. A scream of wind forced through a small opening somewhere on the first floor and whipped down the stairwell.

Within seconds I was back in the snug, logging on with the Phelps’s password.

‘Curwen-Dunmow,’ I told them as I put it into a search engine. ‘Have you never looked it up before?’

They shook their heads dumbly. ‘Not got that far,’ said Harry.

‘Right,’ I said. The connection was slow. I could see why the Phelps didn’t use it much.

At last the engine brought up its searches. The purpling of the top entry indicated that I had been here before. Almost automatically I clicked on the link without seeing what the site was.

I wish I had. It might have prepared me.

Forty-five seconds passed then the engine chugged onto a page that I recognised.

‘F*cking hell,’ I gasped and didn’t apologise.

‘What is it?’ Harry snapped.

I was speechless for a moment and then I said to him, ‘Jediah Curwen-Dunmow. He’s the ancestor of Robert Cutt.’